I have a point to this....really...

RECURRING SCIENCE MISCONCEPTIONS IN K-6 TEXTBOOKS

Cosmology: The Big Bang Theory
On the Problems of the 'Big Bang' Theory of Cosmology

Misconceptions, Confusions, and Conflicts Concerning Socialism, Communism, and Capitalism

Evolution and Philosophy: Does evolution make might right?

The Myth of Democracy

Myths and Facts About Marijuana

Science Vindicates the Mystics: How the World is Not What it Seems

Illusions Reveal the Brains Assumptions

Once upon a time on the old blog an argument started where I was attempting to describe the process I go through of predicting future events and the tone of the responses led me to believe that I was being met with more than a little derision.

Rather than revisit my estimation of said antagonists intelligence I'll view this as my own failure to explain my thoughts clearly and attempt to clarify and expand on my earlier thoughts.

This exercise that will surely gain me the moniker of revisionist as well as prognosticator. Both terms that I will admit have negative connotatioms and elicit emotional responses in myself and have led me to reflexively defend against such charges in the past.

I claim no magic powers or superior intelligence. I'm not asserting my dominance over you. I'm not here to be your messiah or sacred cow that must be slaughtered. I am merely sharing my thoughts.

If as you read this you find yourself tempted to go this route and deride me into an emotional response in an attempt to make me look more of a fool than I will of myself, don't bother.

As it is with me there are some things that stick in my head, persistant unresolved questions and nagging thoughts. The earliest of which was "what am I?". It wasn't my mothers voice, nor any other comforting or simple memory. Literally, my earliest memory was of questioning the nature and mechanism of my own conciousness. This is the question that formed me, my prime motivator so to speak and all questions after that point derivative and a furtherance of that one.

The question of "what am I?" naturally becomes "what are we?" and further "what is everything?". The exploration of "self" is one of both finding exception and commonality in comparison to everything within our experience.

So what does this have to do with the political theme of this blog or the above posted links?

I believe that politics like all human endeavors being derivative of the underlaying intelligence, the information processed and methods of processing of said intelligence, that an examination of said same will lead to a deeper understanding of where politics fails us and why.

Approaching the body politic as an intelligence presents us with a few problems not the least of which is the lack of envidenced intelligence in and of the body politic.

There is a principle in sociology that posits that the larger the number of individuals in a group the easier it becomes to predict the behavior of that group; in effect saying that the intelligence of any body is inversely proportional to the number of individuals in that body.

In nature the tendency is towards the opposite; the more brain cells the more intelligence one gets. We know also that even with a large number of individual brain cells the whole brain can also malfuntion in much the same manner as human societies and the whole becomes less than the sum of the parts.

What this says about the intelligence of democracy and rule by the lowest common denominator we'll leave for another time and just focus on some of the causes of the malfunctioning of humanities collective intelligence.

To work at all every intelligence needs to provide for a number of basic functions.

All intelligences must...

1.) Collect information about the state of it's existence and the environment in which it exists and then produce a model of reality from which it can make behavioral choices by predicting the outcomes of all possible choices based on that model.

If the information collected is inaccurate then the created model is inaccurate and the behavioral choices made inappropriate to the true situation thus producing effects that we would characterize as insane if we saw it in an individual; ie talking to people that aren't there.

As the above posted examples show there are many inaccuracies floating around the collective consciousness. Obviously these aren't the only inaccurate bits of information forming our collective world model or shaping our behavior as a whole.

2.) Create an accurate record of it's choices and the outcomes of those choices so that future choices may be selected that favor a more optimal outcome.

George Santayana:

"Those who cannot learn from history are doomed to repeat it."

Ambrose Bierce:

"HISTORY, n. An account mostly false, of events mostly unimportant, which are brought about by rulers mostly knaves, and soldiers mostly fools."

Much our history, the data set with which we may self correct, to make predictions and model our behavior on are false if even only on the fact that the original information collected was inaccurate.

-to be continued-

Society does however function and malfunction in much the same manner as any other form of intelligence. If for instance society ignores the negative effects of it's consumption and over emphasizes the feel good part of that consumption then it behaves as any other addict would.

-to be continued-